Geothermal Air-Conditioner

A local initiative by an Estonian inventor, Heiki Jüris, invented the Geothermal Air-Conditioner. This device is in use and working. Dr. V. Viljasoo of Estonian University of Life Sciences is collaborating with Mr. Jüris on the testing of the device.

The principle is simple. Two "boxes" are built under, or in extension of the foundation of the house and connected with several sloped tubes. The device is then covered with earth, or built upon. In principle the circulation of the air through a heat pump (much like normal ground heating using a liquid to absorb the heat) the air in this device obtain the ground temperature (around 7 degrees), and returning to normal atmospheric electrostatic air and humidity before pumping it back into the house.

The Geothermal Air-Conditioner seems to be a cheap way to create a healthy air conditioning and heat for the house. It potentially takes up a less space than normal ground heating (if placed under the house), and the space can still be used for storage to some extent. The backside is that is best to include in the initial building phase (though it can be added later as well) and that it is still in (final) experimental phase. The device requires a little manual cleaning every year.

Now, this is not all advertising. The reason for entering this into my blog is that Mr. Jüris seems to be fitting my archetype of a local "alchemist". From what I am told he is a pleasant and modest person who does not do much advertise himself and his invention. He is not a scientist per se I understand (but collaborate with local ones). The principle of the device is simple, clever and cheap (mainly if put into building of a house foundation). Mr. Jüris is one of many brilliant inventors with better solutions to status quo, but chance is that his invention will suffer the same fate as most other of our solutions: little or no impact. The reason? Well, if you read about the conference in the last blog entry you might find one answer. If the focus of government, and thus the scientists (funding is needed by the governments), is on heating with biofules or wood/plant materials ("renewable energy source") then that is what people will use in the future. If the perspective is small in the leadership, and the small man (Mr. Jüris) is not raising massive public awareness on his own, I would sadly predict his invention to become a another future note in the patent office.

Interview with inventor (Estonian)

Power Point presentation of the Geothermal Air-Conditioner

Renewable Energy Sources Conference

The 15th November Estonian University of Life Sciences held their 9th coference on "Investigation and Usage of Renewable Energy Sources" in Tartu. I attended as part of the university, but mostly out of curiosity.

The conference had leading researchers in renewable energy from serveral countries and officials of the Estonian ministries. There seemed to be a strong focus on the countrys vast unused biomass and its applications. Estonia have a lot of unused agricultural land after U.S.S.R. occupation (3 hectar per inhabitant of which 200.000 hectar is abandoned), and a though they are not raping their huge resources of trees, firewood is a common heating source, and has been for hundreds of years. I could not help noticing that firewood is part of the term "renewable energy", but I did not notice references to the enviromental implications, only the economical rentability.


The goverment did, not supprisingly, bring out that they wished to focus their funding, and welcomed researchers who volunteered to state outdated or fields with too low cost-benefit. They also asked for more structured or exact research, since the last 30 years in some fields had given little clarity of the situation regarding renewable energy. On the other hand researchers gave an official plea to the goverment for guidelines to what they should do. Little news there I guess.

The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications gave some interesting data on the status of different renewable energies, but focused on the use of forest resources (biomass conversion, direct energy production and waste uses). I could not help raising a few questions on heat pumps. I asked if they had considered using deep sea water for heating Tallin like the plan in Stockholm? It had not been considered, but they had noticed that the last 5-10 years the sales and use of heat pumps were doubling every year in Estonia. They could not answer why most of the deep ground energy heat pumps were rejected in most cases in Estonia, but speculated it could be due to protection of ground water ressources.

I know that Tartu already has a great initiative that makes heat and ventilation to a house - basically ground heat that does not use electricity. But it is one of these initiatives that has an modest inventor with humble ambitions. So I think very few will see this technology - like others. I will write about the Geothermal Air-conditioner later.

Several fine initiatives were presented at the conference. The best in my opinion was a German initiative by Michael Wachendorf and his team, who focus on using the increasingly abandoned German farm lands. The abandonment is against EU regulations (which is worth a thought), but the farming is no longer financially sound in some areas. So in their initiative they harvest the wild plants growing and converted them into biofuel. I liked this project because it not only tries to produce sounder energy, but also invoveld a growing problem caused by a changing culture.

Estonia is third in Europe (following Lithuania and Finland) in use of renewable energy resources (including firewood) with a set goal of 5.1 % for 2010; a goal that has already been surpassed. Unfortunately this kind of statistics, I think, probably would not change the fact that Estonia is also one of the most polluting countries in EU. So I left with the feeling that the focus was on "renewable" rather that "greener" or perhaps just "sounder" energy. No leaping for Estonia, but small safe steps with the crowd.

Further reading:
 

WorldWideScience - A Step towards Open Science?

The 22nd of June 2007 the Department of Energy (USA) and The British Library of the United States of America opened the new search portal www.worldwidescience.org which has a Declaration of Intention that moves in the direction of Open Science.

The portal has ambitions of becoming a similar gateway as I suggested in my manifest the 29th July, the need for releasing the holds on Science is needed for a dynamic development. This is clearly also the intent of WorldWideScience:

WorldWideScience.org is the prototype for a global science gateway connecting you to national and international scientific databases. WorldWideScience.org accelerates scientific discovery and progress by providing one-stop searching (see advanced search) of global science sources.

Though I welcome this initiative as a step in the right direction, it is still just a collection of databases, made searchable, containing existing information. It undoubtedly (if used) will bring project partners closer to each other in their field of interest, but not necessarily improve or accelerate scientific discovery in its present form.

I wish their project the best and hope to see it develop.

Science Fiction, or the next Frontier

I thought it important to bring a little personal flashback on recent technological jumps I, and many others, never thought to meet in their lifetime. This is important because we easily forget yesterdays breakthrough when it flickers off the TV screen and just how far we are able to push the limit for what is possible these days.

Space Exploration

Remember the saying "the sky is the limit?", well, that limit was broken when landing on the Moon marked possibly the most fantastic achievement of the 20th century. It was a realization of one of mankind's oldest science fiction dreams. But who actually believed a manned mission to the mythical planet Mars would be executed within a lifetime after that? We now have permanent space stations, orbital telescopes reaching far into space and plans of using satellites in grid technology.

From the indivisible atom, to something smaller

When I was a student of biochemistry and learned quantum mechanics, the atom (meaning indivisible) was about to loose its status as the smallest element materials could be broken down to. Quarks were the new buzz word of physics back then (though it was introduced in 1961). So though I was taught that atoms was the smallest "thing" everything was build out of, it is now fairly accepted that we have something called quarks, and that we can build of atoms (nanotechnology). You may even heard about the theory of vibrating strings that is supposed to make even smaller building blocks (still theoretic science). So the smallest thing in the world seems to shrink as the perception and knowledge increases.

Stopping light

One of the most undebateable constants from last century is Albert Einsteins speed of light. Though I have heard claims of people arguing for something travelling faster than light, I have seen no proof of such yet. But it was an eye opener for me when the news brought the news of the Dane Lene Haus teams efforts in slowing down light beams. They later announced they could totally stop and restart light in its path. I think this is a good example of how "constants" may be dangerous (in the perspective of progress) to view as taboos that has been carved into our civilizations history. The only truth I know is that there are no single truth.

Teleportation

Moving objects over great distances, broken down into elementary particles, must have been a technology found in the far future for the most of us, if ever possible. I must have been as ridiculous to think of these technologies as a possibility a few years ago - as it must have seemed to build machines of atoms and altering humans on gene level must have been to a scientist 50 years ago. Never the less, last year (2006) professor Eugene Polzik and his team at Niels Bohr, Denmark, published the results of their teleportation experiments in Nature. This is a technology in its infancy, but no less a reality. Remember than nanotechnology is only 20 years old as an active science, but you can now buy products in the shop today where nanotechnology is used to manifacture it.

Industrial Diamonds
Alchemy was a special mix of philosophy, nature, and spiritual aspects. The chemical aspects in some alchemist studies involved the search for the Philosophers Stone, a legendary substance that was supposed to produce silver and gold from other substances. But if someone today say they can produce diamonds most would shrug and say "off course". Well now days we can make diamonds of our pets or lost family members if desired as a matter of fact. So, maybe the claim that "one can not create gold" should be added a "... , yet".

As you can read here, I do not make this up, it is actual technologies in development. Sometimes I have even given up on convincing people some of these technologies exist, even though they have the luxury of being acknowledged by the science community and media. This is another plea for people to keep their minds open when encountering crazy technology that defies what you know and have learned. I doubt all people are crooks and frauds who want to decieve you.

Fiction is just the next limit our imagination can push our abilities! There ARE people working on time machines (on theoretical level mostly) - but whether they will succeed (or should) can depend on whether people can accept it.

Open Science - Free Inventions for Everyone

This is the first time I suggest the concept Open Science directly. I have been working on this concept for some months, and it is not finished, but please comment!

Open Science my suggestion to a concept that is thought to get around many of hindrances of the technological advances discussed in this blog, by making it free and available for everyone (indicated by this blog that it is currently not).

The Main Concept:
The prime objective of Open Science is that the inventions reach the users who can benefit from them and not get blocked in the process by third parties (inventors being first and users second parties).


Open Science is to be similar to Open Source, but developing openly on inventions rather than text code. A forum is needed for this development, and I imagine a net database would be best suited for this. The inventor/scientist uploads his blueprints, supportive investigation reports, comments, guides and other supportive information to the forum, thus giving up the idea as a protected patented and make it free to use and alter for all.

Money!
The forefitted claim to hypothetical financial gains from an expensive patent can be gained by voluntary donation economy, consultant work and product specific advertisement (like Googles ads) that can help interested builders to get parts from dealers through the forum. If people get into the habit that they can get the best technology, free, it may be hard to pay for unnecessarily high priced products (energy for example).

The social advantages:
Making inventions and build-yourself-guides available without restrictions on the net, potentially makes it accessible for anyone with Internet access; even third world countries. Hopefully, more people with similar ideas and input for a good invention can feed the project to improve making more people involved in developing (and accepting) important technologies, regardless of their background.

The disadvantages:
Third parties may have an interest in stopping an initiative as Open Science. Governments may find it dangerous that technology is globally available, since every technology can be abused as well as bring the civilization a step up the ladder. Companies with competing products will most likely feel threatened by free (and perhaps better) alternatives and attempt lawsuits. This is one of the reasons for keeping the concept free is crucial. If none are selling, there is no physical product and the know-how is free and documented (and thus unpatentable) - it should be difficult to build a case.

Other Open Science projects:
On the net an Open Science project already exist creating open source software (for free) for science applications. However this is not open science, but applications, and since I have not found a better term for this idea, I will stick with Open Science until a better alternative present itself. Journals also use the term for scientists publishing for a larger fee making it free to download in contrast to subscribing to journals. This is the opposite of open science in my opinion. The closest thing I found to my own idea so far is the Open Notebook Science (idea by Jean-Claude Bradley) that simply lets anyone read your science notes, not just the publications.

Warning:
Many have given me the feedback that they think I want to start a movement or change the world. Not really. Too many have tried and failed in getting people to do more than nod politely in consent from the arm chair. My idea with Open Science is to appeal to the industrial countries national sport: apathy. The idea is like Wiki books, that gives the knowledge directly to those who are willing to receive it, around economical interests and politics (I don't even want to fight them). People can get the solutions to what they need, if they can get out of their arm chair. If western countries don't - then let the Chinese take initiative, or someone else. In the end things are what we make of them. I can not predict what a successful outcome looks like for Open Science to the world.

Educational Blocks - Amazing what We do not Know

In my highschool advanced physics class of my final year, I asked my physics teacher while working with thermodynamics: "Aren't there a device that can make electricity of heat (explaining that I did not mean heating something, but heat itself)?" I never forget the look on my teaches face, I could see he struggled with himself to put his words in a way where he would not wound me in my ignorance (I liked my physics teacher, he is a good person). He told me kindly that if anyone would ever invent such a device they would be filthy rich. I naturally interperted this answer as a "no".

It is not until now, during my investigations for this blog, I know that this device were invented years earlier than my question to my teacher. This device was developed by Dennis Lee and his team and went into production in 1984 originally ass a low temperature phase change system (any weather) for producing heat. It was named The Alternative and is one of the technologies that actaully came into production and use in USA, and as it claimed. It was a little later that is device was discovered to produce energy as well with some modifications involving a modified Sterling engine, originally invented by Dr Robert Stirling in 1816. The device however went out of production in a competitive struggle with athoroties and cooperations that I will let the reader investigate themselves, since it is hard to present it objectivly. Read for yourselves (1, 2) about this product. The short story is that the inventor had to go to jail for selling the device on some very odd charges (if any).

As I wrote previously, my teacher and others teachers, have a lot of responsebility in molding our minds to be able to believe in greater advances. I am certain they do not do it intentionally. But I also had an opposite statement, to the skeptism I got in school, from a professor in the university, that opened my eyes again. When I asked him supportive questions to the class that had ended, he suprisingly said "we don't know!" I was in the begining of my studies and professors were like small gods of knowledge - how could they not know? I was curious and asked him to speculate. To this he replied: "It is amazing what we scientists do not know! That is what makes it so fun!" I can only wish more scientists, teachers and people were like him. If we do not know, it does not mean it can not exist - just that we have not discovered why it can work!

Movement Blocks - The road the Hell; a bridge of good intentions

During my biochemical studies I followed a course in Environmental Chemistry instructed by lector Søren Toxsværd (Copenhagen University, Department of Chemistry). During his lectures he often shared his vast knowledge of chemical history. This story he told us when explaining the chemical properties of cement.

As most people now know, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), also known as Freon, are bad for the environment but a good refrigerant. It is a odorless, nontoxic, colorless and nonflammable gas that makes it very safe to be around. But in 1972 F. Sherwood Rowland and Mary Jose discovered that once the released CFCs reached the stratosphere the ultraviolet light could release chlorine. The chlorine has a long term effect on the atmoshperic chemistry in breaking down ozone. But what we probably remember before the bans of CFCs was that freon is bad!

But once the bans were in place, a lot of existing equipment were left with CFCs and nobody knew where to put them. Releasing them would mean destroying the ozone. Clever engineers came up with a solution. The CFCs could be chemically bound in common cement, would chemically be altered and not released as harmful CFCs again. Easy solution to a big problem. But the inventors were too ambitious. They wanted to make the factory that would inactivate the CFCs and produce cement in Africa - giving the country an unique technological advantage. Unfortunately, the intention was misunderstood as exploiting a third world country with a western country chemical waste problem. Media had been pounding the message that Freon is bad into our heads - so the activists saw the initiative as exposing the Africans to a directly harmful chemical to humans (which is untrue).

The movement succeeded in closing the African factory initiative before it was completed, moving the solving of the problem back to square one. A paradox; a brilliant solution to pollution was smothered by the most people who most passionately wanted a solution.

I love this story because it shows how good intentions can turn against ourselves if we do not keep an open mind.

Educational Blocks - If it is so amazing, why is it not used by someone?

When I discuss the existence of great unused inventions and the contents of this blog with people I am often met with the statement: "If it is so amazing, why is it not used by someone?" This phrase is so common that it almost seems like a response running on default, like the memes I wrote about earlier.

Where does this instant rejection of the amazing possibility of a breakthrough for mankind come from? If you were drowning, would you not least attempt to reach a floating object? It does not seem to be the case with long term hazards caused by pollution, wasteful energy sources, overproduction, hunger etc. When I attempt to dig in why my (of different backgrounds) debaters are sceptical towards investigating the integrity of claims on great breakthroughs, and I usually get a school/high school quote of sorts. Examples could be "my physics teacher always said engines can never produce more energy than they can consume and that it is simply impossible" or " it is against the laws of science - so I can not be". I was told these things too, and in a discussion they are statements that are hardly open for discussion. When I try to list some of the problems a good invention might meet before it is on the supermarket shelf, the most difficult to believe is the inventions design - not the problems it faces. I do not like conspiracy theories (though this blog might be labeled as one), but is it not scary that individual thoughts can get one tracked like this? Should we curiosity not be allowed to overcome scepticism in the case of need?

In my own opinion I did rather poorly in school until I realized that I was complicating things by taking too many variables into account at the same time when solving an assignment. My teachers, who I respect, did not want my interpretation or creativity so much as they wanted the correct answer. All through my education, up to doctoral level, I have been schooled in searching for answers that fit the mental box called facts. I agree this reality works very well per default - but it may restrain you and me from even accepting the existence of a revolutionary technological breakthrough. And how do you approach that as an inventor? It works, you can show it works, but people deny it because they have been taught I can not exist. If that is the case perhaps technological breakthroughs are left to be investigated by believers who can accept humanity might not know everything, but can hit a lucky strike when trying to reach for the sky.

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Political Blocks - Big Boss Says No!

The Danish newspaper Politikken wrote today on their website about how the Danish gas compagny DONG attempts to hinder plans of green energy in local areas. Decades ago the Danish goverment invested billions (DKR) in establishing a national gas network (DONG), and planned whole regions to be gas dependant to make it rentable. This now clash with the current reality and initiatives of Danish counties that wish to build houses with greener energies such as sun and biomass fuel. These initiatives have lately grown forward to meet the goals of reducing CO2 and protecting the environment, also specified by the goverment. It is another dillemma, or Catch-22, of a goverments long term planning including law regulation that now disharmonize with new regulations of reducing the use of energy and the effects on the environment.

I post this example because it is a good example of how strongly govermental planning, both short term and long term, blocks what I like to think of as more stable development and generally innovative thinking. One could think of the goverments compagny, DONG, thinking as backward thinking.
As an example we already know that we use enormous amounts of energy building and maintaining houses (it is a good sales pitch for selling more products), but law often hinders the possibility of developing and using alternatives. Examples of these are isolation - where a there are minimum demands for new houses, but there are also strong regulation on using only existing materials. Using collected water for flushing toilets are regulated by demands as well in Denmark. And in Estonia using a circulating system to the ground water beneath the house as a heating is rejected in about 90% of the cases because of theoretical possebility of damaging the ground water. But the same system is very common in Swedish houses. Naturally these regulations and laws are often to protect from damage or harm, but a general manipulation with what is possible have side effects that stops more intelligent alternatives. And as long as money is involved the process of altering the laws is slow - just look at how fast the alternative to the car is regulated.

So, depending on the contry, the political law regulations seems to work as breaks on on innovative development initiatives in general. Laws could work the opposite way, but unfortunatly they are normally designed to be protective rather than progressive.

Mental Blocks - Memes as Denial

Memes can be described as unit of cultural information passed on from human to human. Dawkins gave examples like jingles, tunes, beliefs, trends etc. In short memes can be considered bits of information (not nesscarily true) passed on between individuals like a virus or a gene, altering itself slightly over time. We all know commercials by heart like "Just do it!" (Nike) or our politicians ("Axis of terror") that uses memes to change minds by changing habits through repetition or spin.

I bring on memes because science, and the way we approach the rationale as the truth, could have become a meme. It has become commonplace to hear phrases in the news like "Statistically more....", "Experts in....", "Surveys indicate that..." and so on. It seems to me that science is used by news and politicians as undeniable tools, or weapons, for facts and correct standpoints. Odd, since journalists and politicians does not seem to communicate very well with scientists and vice verse. And because journalists and politicians speak about research results as if they were their own, they become memes by repetition.

Have you ever instinctively denied a child's fantasies? For example, if your kid would run up to you, excited, telling you there is a tiger in the yard - would you not feel urged to tell the kid there is no tiger in the yard without looking first? Kids have a good imagination by default, and we adults often do our best to dampen these tall tales with common sense. Common sense, that if we think about it, often is guided by what we have been told - memes. A little curiosity or sense of adventure might make us look for the tiger, but the inner voice often win over the instinct of curiosity.
So if I replace the kid with an garage inventor who excited enter the public forum with a new high yielding energy source running on water, the integrity does not increase much because of his years of age. I would claim the same mechanisms kick in. We are sceptical and normally categorically deny the validity of the invention due lack of documentation or conflicts with scientific "laws" (memes) - in stead of being curious and look into it with the mindset of "what if the inventor is right?".

In summary, my point here is that memes based on how the world looks like is a serious mental barrier in all of us if one innovative revolution stares us in the face, and we all help sustaining it.

Financial Blocks - The best inventions are free!

If a combination of brilliant inventors and wealth occurred in history it is rarely the case modern times. If there ever were a time where currency is crucial for an invention to rise through the cement floors of documentation, risk assessments, patents, marketing, laws, and safety reports (that all exist for our benefits we might argue), it is the present time. But time could be at a changing point, circling around the dominating investors dictating what inventions are needed!

Many idealistic inventors have had the idea of free applications of discoveries should benefit humanity. Nikola Teslas (1856-1943) dream of free energy is just one of these. He believed so intensively in this idea that he tore up the patent contract that entitled him to royalties on the all the electricity we now take for granted, possibly making him the richest man on earth.
So far the wall every inventor meets is raising enough finances to do research, build and improve. Competition is tough, and money is often earmarked in narrow fields (designed on demand by industry, universities and politicians) like the EU framework program. It may be tough for a totally original idea to be considered in such a context. So what to do when there are no money from the investors?

The current revolution of the IT-era could open a possibility: free innovation. Or perhaps innovation paid directly by the users rather than investors.
Look at the approach of Wikibooks in helping to solve the knot of how to educate people in developing countries. One plan is to write 1000 books of education by qualified people though Wikipedias online tools, and make them available for free. The project is driven, on a book level, by sponsors who wish to be associated with the developing markets. With one new approach, greedy bureaucrats, international politics, and outdated books, are elegantly chess mated.

Independent programmers increasingly release programs, many of them open source, for free use on the internet, and live off voluntary donations. The debated peer to peer internet technology, BitTorrent (by Bram Cohen) is just one example. A technology that is just at its beginning of its applications, and has lead to inventions such as free telecommunication (Skype). Voluntary donations have already spread into many internet based projects from pop culture (comic books, independent music artists) to humanitarian movements (The Hunger Site).

Individuals donating finances to projects rather than big interest based money tanks is probably a trend born from our ego centered culture and the new web technologies, but a powerful trend none the less. It would loosen some of the organized control and allow more chaos and creativity – evolution, in short. Firms also seem to have discovered that paying for exposure (commercials) is a way to finance projects on the internet (eg. The Hunger Site). If the trend develops over the years one can hope that at least some of the international resources could be redirected to help home inventors and great ideas on their feet. Perhaps free for everyone.

General introduction - Catch-22 of Innovation

When I entered the natural sciences I could not get the thought out of my head: How many amazing, perhaps revolutionary, inventions continuously are lost due to habits and rules of society, and why?

To give a little introduction, I would like to give an example of such an invention.

When I was 19 years old a local Danish TV program showed a short documentary on Erik Skaarups wave energy converter, he named “Bølgehøvlen” (now named WavePlane). The program planted the first seed of doubt in me whether truly innovative achievements are getting a place in our time.
Erik Skaarup explanation how he as a home inventor came up with the idea of harvesting wave energy in his bathtub made me smile, but it was the opposition his idea met at the most obvious investors (like the Danish government) that dazzled me! The depressing story of how he went from door to door of the investors was long, even with self financed test proofs of pilot models. The potential investor I remember the best was the Danish Ministry of the Environment who argued they did not find it necessary to invest in wave technology since they had wind power technology well developed. A paradoxal statement considering Danish politic has preached green energy and innovative solutions as part of up-keeping the national welfare and work places for decades. The story have not changed over the last 13 years from what I can read from the company website (www.WavePlane.com) who now has most investors in Norway and bases in Australia, Japan and USA. Time will tell if Danish investors made fools of themselves.

Now I have found that hundreds of incredible inventions and inventors, through news but also first hand, who never get to change the world for the better. And why? Is it the patent laws? Eccentric behavior? Lack of scientific proof? Lack of economic understanding from the inventor? Lack of understanding of the impact of the invention of the investor? Or is it because we, as civilization, just can not handle more than one revolution at a time (currently being the IT era)? I think it is all of the above. And in this blog I will try to give examples of these points of view.

To make myself understand this paradox, I created two groups of inventors: the Alchemist and the Scientist. I may be a son to a father of the first category, but am officially working as (and by the rules of) the latter. An Alchemist is a term I use in lack of better because it best fits the personal approach of discovery (home inventors, but more) in lack of better, not to mix up with the medieval magician. It is my opinion that these two groups approach inventions from opposite angles. The Scientist has to skeptically build all his discoveries on theories already established. Theories that are our best bet at describing reality, but far from do so.
An Alchemist plays around, discovers something works, believes in the invention, but then meets the modern age demand of nearly anal demands for documentation. Often this creates a catch-22, that few normal people have time or temper to satisfy. The result is that the invention dies with the owner, in the patent office or in the drawer.

If innovation and miracles are what we need to solve the 21st Century’s challenges, maybe we need to reevaluate our approach to discovery and the space we allow true originality. Welcome to my blog!